MUNCIE, Ind. — In the 2016 election year, Delaware County Clerk Mike King said, officers of a Muncie church said they couldn't accommodate a voting place in their church for the November election and wondered if the election couldn't be moved to another date.

King laughed as he recalled that conversation on Wednesday, but it illustrates the behind-the-scenes challenges that officials face as they try to plan local elections three out of four years.

With the 2018 election season underway, here are five things that will affect voters this year:

Your voting site could change. The county commissioners, who establish voting sites through sometimes-challenging negotiations with local churches, school and other entities, need to find places for voters in 78 precincts to cast ballots. This year, the number of polling sites has been reduced from 57 to 55. Also, three former sites can no longer be used: Sutton and Storer schools have closed since the last election and the Muncie Fieldhouse was damaged in a storm and can't be used by the public.

You won't be voting in consolidated voting centers this year. Some communities have consolidated their precinct-by-precinct polling places into big voting centers. Although Delaware County officials and election figures have discussed such a move for years, they haven't agreed on whether to offer early voting in advance of Election Day at sites besides the Delaware County Building or just on Election Day. King proposed that voting centers be studied during 2017, when there was no local election, but neither Democrats nor Republicans pursued the idea.

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Absentee voting machines in the election room in the Delaware County Building.(Photo11: Keith Roysdon / The Star Press)

Voting has already begun. Early, or absentee, voting began in the election room on the first floor of the Delaware County Building, 100 W. Washington St., on Tuesday. Early voting continues until noon on the Monday before the Tuesday, May 8 election, including the two immediately previous Saturdays.

There's some interest in early voting, but perhaps not as much as in 2016. King said more than 40 people voted on the first day and more than 200 mail-out ballots had already been processed. The clerk said he thought that was typical.